There must be a reason...

[Wolf Kanno]

What do you feel FF does better than other RPGs? What brought you to this series overall and what keeps you hanging on outside of the fan community?

[Lord Golbez]

The things that I feel FF does better than other RPGs, they largely don't anymore, but here goes.

1. Jumping right into the action. So many RPGs start in a quiet village with your typical MC yearning for adventure. It's cliche, it's boring, and it leaves me feeling like I have to go through the motions just to hopefully get to something interesting. FF by contrast often thrusts you right into the action so interesting things are happening from the beginning. It catches your attention right away so you don't get bored and wonder if this is worth your time investment.

2. Just plain better stories. FF stories tend to stand out as more polished, more inventive and distinct, and just more interesting than their competitors. This really doesn't seem to be true anymore, but it used tp bem

3. Better gameplay. The earlier FFs (not recent ones) hewed to a classic RPG formula but always put just enough spin to keep things fresh and their changes to the formula were generally good. This kept them more fun to play than both completely traditionalist RPGs lile Dragon Quest and games that strayed too far from the formula that they lost the magic of turn-based RPG fun. As I've said, this does not apply to current FFs or basically any FF past FFX.

[Fynn]

I think for me it's the fact that FF usually has the most complete experience, so to speak. It'll usually have a fairly engaging story that's funny and serious and everything in-between, along with being fairly cinematic, an enjoyable cast of characters, a fairly engaging combat system, an interesting world, etc. I feel there are many series that handle one or more of these aspects better than FF, but with Final Fantasy you kinda get a little bit of everything and that's what makes it feel satisfying.

[WarZidane]

Overall, I'd say the only thing FF does better than others is its production values. Take FFVIII, the game that got me into the series. Things like the train mission and the garden battle, not to mention a bunch of the FMVs, were amazing back then (to me, at least). Like nothing I'd seen before in other games.

Beyond that, what got me into the series was also just being in the right place at the right time. 11-year old me was dealing with a lot of crap, and along comes FF8 with a story that's filled to the brim with teenage angst and emotions. Not so appealing to me anymore nowadays, but back then it was perfect.

As for what keeps me around, well, they're just enjoyable games. Not the best, but when even my least favorite mainline entry was still enjoyable enough to play through, yeah I'll stick around.

[Del Murder]

I think for me it's the fact that FF usually has the most complete experience, so to speak. It'll usually have a fairly engaging story that's funny and serious and everything in-between, along with being fairly cinematic, an enjoyable cast of characters, a fairly engaging combat system, an interesting world, etc. I feel there are many series that handle one or more of these aspects better than FF, but with Final Fantasy you kinda get a little bit of everything and that's what makes it feel satisfying.
I agree with Fynn, it's about the complete experience FF brings. The games aren't the best in every area but they don't have a lot of weak points. I also think they have a lot of replay value as for most of the games you can make different decisions to change your experience. They also have really good pacing and don't hold your hand for too much of it or have long periods of downtime where you either have to grind or the story doesn't go anywhere.